


What The Fork Is Going On?

by HashtagPomegranate



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Drabble, Gen, Snarky Eleanor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 00:02:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17355155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HashtagPomegranate/pseuds/HashtagPomegranate
Summary: The coffee shop AU that everyone clearly needed.





	What The Fork Is Going On?

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, I found this on a my computer from a year ago and giggled and thought someone else out there might enjoy this. It's more of a drabble than a story. I hope you enjoy. I don't have major plans to add anything but if you have a particular thing you'd like to see, feel free to let me know. I might be inspired.

Eleanor has been a barista at a starbucks-knock-off for a while now.  She kind of hates everyone who comes in and intentionally futzes with their orders.  Nothing huge (no switching out soy for normal milk – she doesn’t want to kill anyone.  She’d lose her job) but things like halving or doubling the flavors that go into the coffee, by over-foaming the cappuccino, making a latte instead of a macchiato.  Though to be fair that ones just laziness.  No one can taste the difference anyway.

The guy who ends up on her shift the most is a guy named Jason.  He’s constantly stoned, and she likes him better that way.  When he isn’t stoned he tries to take over the store music and his taste in music is AWFUL.  He’s mostly harmless and if she’s bored she lets him make the drinks b/c A) he will fuck it up and B) it’s funny watching people still not notice their order isn’t right.  Or they make that slightly irritated nose crinkle but decide not to complain cause the dude is basically a dumb golden-retriever. Those are Eleanor’s favorite people.  C) if she works the register she gets to not-so-subtly mock everyone for their bad coffee choices.

It’s not like she cares about coffee either.  She drinks it black as she can get it and the quicker the better.  She loves the moment all the caffeine drops in her system and her heart jumps like she’s gonna have a minor heart attack. It’s the opposite of calming and she fucking loves that terrifying second. 

On her first day there, the shift manager (a guy named Michael who is way too into it) goes over all of the instructions.  Which she ignores.  He does however point out a gorgeous woman who storms into the store, delivers an overly complicated drink in such a way that it costs nothing, and breezes out of the store like she was floating on the cloud of lies she would have to create to keep up that persona.  Michael raves about Tahani and all the good she does in the world.  The she sets up art galleries and hosts galas to raise money for the poor.  (fun fact: next time Eleanor sees Tahani she asks what she raises money for.  The answer was, the poor.  “What kind of poor” asked dear Eleanor with the fakest innocent expression she could muster.  “Well, dear.  The people who don’t have money.” – the charity had to be bullshit, too vague an answer). 

Around the time that the summer has ended, a dorky looking black man in glasses started to come in.  He would arrive shortly after 11:30 am, spend five minutes looking at the menu, and another 10 questioning Eleanor about the coffee.  Is it fair trade? Was it locally source?  From a single area?  What were the working conditions? Eleanor of course, lied her fucking way out of that.  She hadn’t listened to any of that shit. 

The worst thing was after having wasted her time, he ordered a water.  He just couldn’t condone “the possibility of poor working conditions and low wages for the…”  and Eleanor let her eyes closed.  Guy was better than a white noise machine.  The first time he ordered the water she was a little to surprised and angry at the nerve of wasting her time and just handed him a water cup.  The second she said, “you know we have water bottles, right?”  Which was a mistake as it lead to a decently long conversation about how water bottles were helping cause the drought by moving waters from areas that were currently in a drought (i.e. California)to areas without a drought which wasted resources in every way from bottling the water, to transporting it, to adding to the unnecessary waste and… yeah.  Eleanor didn’t make that mistake again.

What she did do was start charging him for the water.  She claimed it was because by not buying coffee he was stealing wages from the workers, which led him to look suitably horrified.  But he would sit in the coffee shop with his computer until just before 12:30.  Then pack up all his things and leave.  If he was going to use their store as a convenient place to work he was damn well going to pay for it.  Not that the store saw any of the three dollars she would charge him per water.  She kept the money for herself, (until Jason caught her slipping it into her pocket and decided he had earned a whole dollar for his dubious silence).

But she kind of grows complacent.  She might hate most of the people who come in, but she’s kind of perfected Tahani’s perfect order.  Has learned how to help people while Chidi is still dithering away before ordering his water (it’s not like anything ever changes, but the guy is consistent).  Jason keeps fucking around in the back (which is honestly just a room full of various sized bags of coffee and a mop). 

And then one day Tahani comes in a bit later than usual.  Comes in at a time where Chidi had just started to work on whatever he’s always working on, and apparently dork is Tahani’s type because she beelines and starts to ask him about what he does.

And Eleanor, Eleanor eavesdrops into the conversation to learn that Chidi is an ethics professor (gross) and that he likes reading (double gross) and inspiring the mind of the youths (disgusting) and yet she can’t help but to be a little bit pissed off that she’s only eavesdropping it.  

She wants to be sitting there with them talking, and she can’t quite figure out why.  Instead of thinking it over she shoves a mop at Jason.  “Hey Loser, I’m taking my break.”

With a dopey smile and an okay he’s off and Eleanor goes into the back room to try and figure out what the fork was going on. 


End file.
